


Unparalleled

by Averander



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: All things Solas, Angst, Eventual Fade Sex, Eventual Fade Tongue, F/M, Humour, No tea drinking, Romance, Seriousness, eventual actual sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-09 19:58:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3262490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Averander/pseuds/Averander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His world and hers only collided by the sheerest of chances. Lives that would have been better never to have crossed.</p><p>The wolf howls at the riverside, but the deer lingers still.</p><p>SolasLavellan</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Frost curled across her lips and bit over her skin like nothing she felt in her life. Used to the warmer, comparatively perhaps, climes of forests and dales that her clan walked, this was something she knew nothing of. She was not prepared, and the humans had cared little for the ‘murderer’ and ‘horror’ that she was deemed to be now. The woman ahead of her was clad in thick armour and wearing boots and shield, she herself was still in thin wools they’d stripped her down to in the prison. She leant heavily on her staff, only just found and gladly taken. A hard won prize but a thankful one. Fenalas struggled up the steps, her limbs stiff like ice, perhaps her blood was freezing in her veins. It wouldn’t surprise her, but she had to conserve her mana, it was precious and there were no potions to be had out here. No one would sing for her corpse nor send her properly to the fade. She had to survive. 

But why? She wasn’t quite sure anymore. The one reason she had told herself to live was gone. The conclave had been destroyed, and she had meant to figure out its meanings for the Elvhen. Now? Now chaos. Azure eyes looked to the shuddering sky, slowly everything was being ripped to pieces. 

“Move elf, we are almost there, they are waiting for us and need our help.” The voice was not kind, it wasn’t exactly motivating but it was right. There were others out there, Fenalas couldn’t allow them to be in danger because of her own melancholy, and the sounds of battle were not that far off now. Surely it wouldn’t be too far, surely it wouldn’t be too hard to get there. 

Yet it was still a struggle, the snow pounding and coating her skin. Frostbite nipping at her toes and fingers, she could feel tears leaking from her eyes only to snap freeze to her face. Every twitch of her face became agony as the ice snapped and cracked.

“The rift won’t seal, and it will not stay inactive for long”

She could hear them, just a few more steps.

“Damnit chuckles, I thought you had this all figured out this time!” 

Cassandra ran past her, Fenalas had to struggle to breathe. It felt like there was a heavy weight on her lungs now, and the snow was weighing in, but she could see now. Through the web of ice mottles across her lashes. The group huddled around this burst of light in the world, no, the veil, she could feel it pulsing and swaying like it was a dream. 

“Look out, they’re coming through!” 

They needed her, didn’t they? She couldn’t be useless and stay back freezing, no, she had to use her precious mana for something. 

“Oh Andraste’s tits!” 

She could feel her whole body shifting as it overtook her. Bones crunching and moving and the pain was something she tried not to think about too much, at least not anymore. Vertebrae shifting together, leg and arm bones changing sizes and position. Not to mention the horrific muscular transformations that were going on. The subtler changers were easier, the smells, the change in sighs, the sounds, the warmth. She liked the warmth, it freed her from the shackles of being slow and cumbersome. A body covered in fur was so much easier, and four legs were nicer than just two. She shook away the snow and ice from her fur before snapping her jaws to test that the transformation was complete. She padded forward slowly, ears pivoting as she took in the sounds of battle, Shields and magic colliding, the shrieks and howls of demonic creatures. The steady thunk of bolts being fired. It was always wiser, when transformed to survey the edges of battle before jumping in, as it was common to get hit by friends and foes alike if one wasn’t careful enough. Especially when they didn’t know very much about transformative magic, considering that it was a rare and hard to master form of art. 

Wisps on the outer edge, figures made of light and faded memories of creatures that had long past flinging energy into the combat and at the mage and the one firing the crossbow. Shades in the fight itself battering against Cassandra having brought low the others who had been fighting. The mage was focusing the shades and shielding Cassandra, only the crossbowman was targeting the wisps. 

Her mournful howl filled the air, a habit that she hadn’t shaken from childhood before she ran into the line of wisps, her teeth ripped into the first one’s incorporeal shape. Its ‘arms’ flailing and trying to pull her off of it, but she would not relent, digging in ever deeper and shaking at the creature until it finally fell limp and faded into the ether. She howled with her kill and the other wisps finally took notice of her, ceasing their attacks for a moment, a mistake the crossbowman took advantage off. Firing a volley of shots at the creatures that turned them into nothing but vapour. 

She allowed the form to fall from her shoulders. Bone and blood and muscle moved and shifted, returning to normal. 

“Quickly.” The word was whispered in her ear before she knew he was even there, his hand closing over hers, and her head turned. 

Their eyes met and crossed the violent storm of snow. Azure meeting storm blue, even though there was no space between them it was as though there were many lifetimes worth of distance there. She couldn’t tell now, was that thumping in her chest her heart? Or merely nerves as he dragged her? For once she had no answers, for all the world. There was only her and him in this entire universe.

The rift glowed and she felt it pound in time with the pain in her hand that she had forgotten over the cold that had ripped her apart as much as any other sensation. The blackening of her fingertips spoke volumes of that. 

He pushed her hand into the void of that rift and something in her reached out into that hole and she could hear someone screaming. 

Was it her? 

Or was it someone in the fade, some memory of a scream reaching out beyond the void? 

At first it seemed the hole was only getting bigger but then she realised it was knitting, knitting together into a fabric again, stretching out and pulling wide and then suddenly pulling taught and in and then nothing. Nothing, like the breath in her ear, the feel of his head near her own, the warmth of his body, the feel of someone close. 

It was gone. 

He was gone. 

She found herself tumbling, stumbling back into the snow. Breathing deeply, heaving, nausea overwhelming her, only just managing not to quite chuck up what meagre contents might be in her stomach. 

“What…what did I just do?”

“You sealed the rift.” The mage said, sounding almost impressed, though more relieved than anything else.

“You weren’t able to, but I was. How?” She pauses and shakes her head, “No stupid question, mark on the hand. Better question, what is it?” 

“Your guess would be as good as mine, though it seems tied to the breach itself. That it is able to effect the rifts is a blessing, it seems.” He stops looking to the others, Cassandra and the Dwarf appear to be bickering about something, though you cannot tell what. “Though perhaps this is a discussion for another time. Closing the breach should be our priority, now that it seems a possibility.” 

“I suppose, though it is not exactly my choice. You seem to be the one who knows what’s actually going on. You can tell me as much about the breach as you can. I have still got no idea what’s going on, and the Shem isn’t exactly forthcoming with answers, da’len.” He seems almost amused about something she said but doesn’t seem to feel like sharing, merely nodding his head. “I suppose she hasn’t been treating you well either, wouldn’t surprise me. She seems like the most typical of her kind.” 

“Perhaps. Though she has her reasons to be suspicious.” He pauses when he notes the sour look she gives him, “I however do not think that you cause the breach. No ordinary mage could have caused it, to be sure.” 

“I’m glad I have your vote of confidence, da’len, the people need to stick together. We don’t have anyone else.” She smiled at him, a hand running through her hair as she turned to look at the human and dwarf who were only now making their way over.

“Well, you’ve managed to close the rift. Good, now sealing the breach is our top priority. If you can do this… perhaps the charges laid against you will be less severe.” Cassandra pursed her lips, a hand resting on the hilt of her blade as though waiting for trouble. 

“I’m not surprised you’re not convinced of what I say, Shem’len, your kind is always quick to judge. I’ll make the attempt to close the breach, but after that, I expect to go on my own path. Your courts mean nothing to me.” Fenalas turned and leapt over the style, staff still in hand. 

“Well Seeker, looks like you’re not scaring her. Maybe you’re getting rusty, I mean, that’s the first time you’ve failed to ‘persuade’ someone into doing what you want, right?” The dwarf chuckles to himself, raising his hands in mock terror when the human sends a glare in his direction.

The mage couldn’t help but stare at Fenalas’ back, the fingers of his hand curling, mind running in droves as he mulled over the many questions he had to ask her if the breach did manage to be sealed.


	2. Old Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot less Solas in this chapter, but we're getting to places we need to go? Maybe? I'm just posting as I get them done to be honest. Also I am writing literally before I go to sleep. Like at midnight. What am I doing with my life. Nobody knows. Will post a picture for Fenalas' vallaslin at some point, have drawn it up. Who's vallaslin is it? Hmmm I wonder. It's such a mystery LOL. Shout out to Solasmancers Subreddit! Love you guys <3

The second rift closed with the ease of a door being shut rather than the difficulties of a hole in the fabric of reality being haphazardly pinned back into place by magics no one could fully understand. It was quite refreshing considering the difficulties that the rather peculiar crew had had to face, and which Fenalas was now apparently leading. Since Cassandra did not particularly seem to guide the group, but rather shepherd it in the right direction. 

It was strange that the shem did not seem to want to lead, but rather to follow. It did not seem to become her in some way, or perhaps she simply did not want it to become her. It rankled her somehow, yet it seemed that it should, in some way, suit her bearing. Especially considering how she treated the others. If not with voice then with judging stares of a commander displeased by her company. Especially when it came to the dwarf. She shoved and grimaced while the dwarf was all smiles of a sort, though they seemed tinged with bitter tang. 

They had been an interesting study, though perhaps not her prime one. 

What interested her most was the mystery mage. Her azure eyes couldn’t help but flicker to him, and his gaze was on the gates to the bridge. 

He carried himself like a Keeper, but looked like a flat ear. He wasn’t cowed like one though, and he had this far way look to him, that some of the Keepers she’d seen at an Arlathvhen got in their old age. It was more than that though, he didn’t sound quite right, he had a voice like someone straddling the line too, an accent of the Dales but not. Who was he? Where did he come from?

His eyes suddenly caught hers and she looked away, feeling guilty that she’d been caught staring. He wasn’t a flat ear. That was something she’d decided as soon as she’d seen him. You knew a flat ear as quick as a blink, the clan said.

She moved through the gates, shem’len guards opening it for her. She wondered how they felt, opening those big doors just so a ‘criminal’ and a ‘knife-ear’ could pass? She hoped they felt bad if they thought on it like that at all, would serve them right. 

“You can’t be serious Lelianna, that knife ear should be going to Val Royeaux to be executed immediately, you and I both know she’s guilty.” Her eyes glued to a man arguing with a woman dressed in black at the end of the bridge over a table of maps and plans that meant nothing to Fenalas. Only their conversation, obviously about her and the actions she was being forced into undertaking.

“Sir, I must object. We must try to seal the breach, and if we do not do so now we put the whole of Thedas at risk.” The woman in black was not backing down, admirable but perhaps naïve in the way she delivered it.

“You and Cassandra are both acting in defiance of the Chantry and I will hear no more of it! This matter is closed!” A hand slammed down with the finality of an old man’s senile ramblings.

“No, it is not closed.” Cassandra stepped in with the force of blunt will at her back, “You would put the lives of thousands at risk for no good reason, Chancellor, when the prisoner is happy to help seal the breach now. We can charge her with her crimes, if they are true charges, after the breach is sealed.” Her finger alone pointed at him carries the weight of her words and fires each one like an arrow into his chest. 

“Of course the prisoner is ‘happy to close the breach’, you really think she won’t make it worse? Or sabotage your attempts to close it? Don’t be naïve Seeker.” The Chancellor looks to Fenalas, his eyes weary, tired of the death perhaps, or just tired of the life he has been forced to live. “I take it this is the prisoner, such pagan markings…” He can’t help but shudder, the markings were indeed shocking to those who had never seen Dalish markings before. The wide lines of a wolf’s gaping maw spread across her cheeks and jaw, the snarling snout over her nose and upper cheeks, with dots beside her eyes, and then the ears on her forehead. It was a rather elaborate affair that darkened her skin, much unlike the thing filigree of her kin. She couldn’t help but grin, the sharp teeth of the wolf around her mouth spreading into a mocking, howling laugh around her lips. He shuddered in almost pure revulsion. “She is a danger to us all, surely you should understand that, Seeker. The Chantry must-”

“The Chantry can be damned if it’s not going to look after its people first and foremost. We are going to seal the breach. Or die trying. If you want no part in it, so be it, Chancellor. That is the end of the matter.” Cassandra brushed him off like so much dust and turned to Lelianna. “So, what are our options?”

“Well, we can take a path through the mountains, though we have lost contact with a group of scouts through there or we can head straight to the temple with our troops. You would be safer if you head through the mountains, however we would suffer heavier troops casualties. My advice would be to head through the mountains.”

“However we cannot afford any casualties Lelianna, you and I both know this…” The pair shared a glance that spoke of things that could not be said in front of present company. “It would be better to face the threat head on and avoid as many casualties as possible.” 

“And risk losing everything in one brave charge? How very noble of you, but foolish, if we lose the prisoner we lose everything. Our chance of sealing the Breach will be gone and nothing will change this.” Lelianna’s raised brow and subtle smile spoke volumes, she was used to having this conversation with Cassandra over plans in various different situations it seemed.

“How will losing most of our troops be any different in the long run, Lelianna? The people will need to be defended, and every soldier out there is needed, their lives can’t be thrown away on a whim, we’re not even sure that road is safe. You said so yourself that you lost a scout group on that path.”

“I did.” The shem’s brows furrow deeply, her lips pursing, “And I never said it would be safe, but it is safer especially with the army buying time for you on the battlefield. “

“I agree with the shem in black. I’d rather see what the mountain pass has to offer us, especially if it is safer. We need as much of a change as possible of getting to the temple alive, after all, we might all die trying to seal the Breach itself, might as well not die beforehand.” She couldn’t help the impish grin on her face as the two humans looked at her with rather different opinions on her input. Cassandra looked like she was going to reach out and break her neck without a moment’s notice while Lelianna looked mildly amused by the idea that they were being told which option to take by a prisoner. 

“We did not ask you for help, elf.” It was almost flattering how hard she was trying to keep her voice calm, though she did sound rather like she was about to explode.

“No you didn’t, but I’m the one who’s probably going to get killed by you shems whether or not I get that hole in the sky closed, so I might as well have a say in what way I try not to die getting there. So if you’d be so kind, Seeker, the mountain path, if you’d please.”

“Well, she has a point Cassaandra, she may have the chance to choose this much. She won’t be getting anymore luxuries if she’s sent to Val Royeaux.” Lelianna’s voice was half teasing and half serious, Fenalas wasn’t even sure herself if she was being supported or perhaps merely humoured by the woman in black. It was exceptionally hard to tell. 

“Alright! Alright… we’ll go the way you want, prisoner. But if anything happens to you, or if you try to escape…” That accusatory finger was loaded, but only with blanks.

“You’ll what? You’ll take it as a sign of my guilt? Please, Seeker, there’s nothing you can threaten me with.” Another smile, and even a laugh this time as she headed to the other gate. “Now, show me to this pass, I can’t wait to feel even more of your blasted cold!”


End file.
